Spontaneous symmetry breaking in lasers with periodically modulated gain and refractive index

The dynamics of light in active optical systems with periodic complex potential is considered using coupled modes approach where the field is approximated by two counter propagating waves. It is demonstrated that shifting the position of the imaginary part of the potential (effective gain) with respect to the real part of the potential (variation of the refractive index) one can control the effective gain/losses seen by the upper and the power modes. This effect can be used to control the radiation from the laser. The effect of the Kerr nonlinearity is also considered and it is shown that this can result in spontaneous symmetry breaking leading to the formation of the hybrid nonlinear states.

Binge Watching during COVID-19: Associations with Stress and Body Weight

Binge watching is becoming increasingly common and may impact energy balance and body weight. The COVID-19 pandemic has created conditions conducive to binge watching and increased stress. We investigated relationships between COVID-related stress and binge watching behaviors, and potential variation in this relationship by body weight. Adults (n = 466) completed a cross-sectional online survey assessing binge watching behaviors during and before the pandemic, COVID-related stress, and body weight. Participants reported an increase in binge watching frequency from before to during the pandemic (F1,401 = 99.970, p < 0.001), with rates of high binge watching (“3–4 times per week” to “3 or more times per day”) increasing from 14.6% to 33.0%. Binge watching episode duration increased from 3.26 ± 1.89 h to 3.92 ± 2.08 h (p < 0.001). The increase in binge watching frequency was greatest in individuals with obesity and high stress (F 4,401 = 4.098, p = 0.003). Participants reporting high stress reported higher frequency of eating while binge watching, as well as higher levels of negative emotional triggers, consequences to binge watching, and lack of control over binge watching (all p < 0.001). Our results show that binge watching increased during the pandemic, with greater increases among individuals reporting higher COVID-related stress, especially those with obesity, and concomitant effects on eating, and highlight a need for interventions to minimize the obesogenic impact of binge watching during the pandemic.

A Text-As-Data Approach for Using Open-Ended Responses as Manipulation Checks

Participants that complete online surveys and experiments may be inattentive, which can hinder researchers’ ability to draw substantive or causal inferences. As such, many practitioners include multiple factual or instructional closed-ended manipulation checks to identify low-attention respondents. However, closed-ended manipulation checks are either correct or incorrect, which allows participants to more easily guess and it reduces the potential variation in attention between respondents. In response to these shortcomings, I develop an automatic and standardized methodology to measure attention that relies on the text that respondents provide in an open-ended manipulation check. There are multiple benefits to this approach. First, it provides a continuous measure of attention, which allows for greater variation between respondents. Second, it reduces the reliance on subjective, paid humans to analyze open-ended responses. Last, I outline how to diagnose the impact of inattentive workers on the overall results, including how to assess the average treatment effect of those respondents that likely received the treatment. I provide easy-to-use software in R to implement these suggestions for open-ended manipulation checks.

A high-performance asymmetric supercapacitor-based (CuCo)Se2/GA cathode and FeSe2/GA anode with enhanced kinetics matching

An ASC device is assembled by constructing a CuCo2Se4/GA cathode and a FeSe2/GA anode, and the potential variation during cycling is monitored.

Evolution of Middle English Alliterative Phrases in 15th-Century Scottish Poetry: New Forms and Functions

Alliterative phrases, along with traditional poetic words and substantivized epithets, are considered to be a typical feature of the diction of alliterative revival in England and Scotland, a special marker of this tradition. Formulaic alliterative phrases are quite a different phenomenon than traditional oral poetic formulas; their formulaic character is expressed in potential variation of their elements provided that the semantics and the alliteration scheme are preserved, which allows poets to create individual author variants on the basis of traditional phrases. The paper discusses the use of formulaic alliterative phrases as illustrated by two alliterative Scottish poems that were written nearly at the same time (second half of the 15th century) and belong to the same tradition, but to different genres: the romance Golagros and Gawain and the allegorical poem The Buke of the Howlat. Golagros and Gawain is a poem composed in the decline of the genre of romance, which glorifies the virtues of chivalry and the heroic world becoming a thing of the past. A characteristic feature of the poem is the extensive use of variation between the elements of set phrases typical of the tradition of alliterative revival. A large number of alliterative phrases in Golagros and Gawain are individual author variants describing an ideal chivalric hero. In The Buke of the Howlat, on the contrary, most phrases are fixed and stereotyped. The author of this poem prefers to exploit formulas as a satiric device, putting typical phrases in an unusual context and thus altering their meaning.

A Text-As-Data Approach for Using Open-Ended Responses as Manipulation Checks

Participants that complete online surveys and experiments may be inattentive, which can hinder researchers’ ability to draw substantive or causal inferences. As such, many practitioners include multiple factual or informational closed-ended manipulation checks to identify low-attention respondents. However, closed-ended manipulation checks are either correct or incorrect, which allows participants to more easily guess and it reduces the potential variation in attention between respondents. In response to these shortcomings, I develop an automatic and standardized methodology to measure attention that relies on the text that respondents provide in an open-ended manipulation check. There are multiple benefits to this approach. First, it provides a continuous measure of attention, which allows for greater variation between respondents. Second, it reduces the reliance on subjective, paid humans to analyze open-ended responses. Last, I outline how to diagnose the impact of inattentive workers on the overall results, including how to assess the average treatment effect of those respondents that likely received the treatment. I provide easy-to-use software in R to implement these suggestions for open-ended manipulation checks.

Textual metadiscourse in academic book reviews in Serbian and English

This paper examines the forms and patterns of use of the markers of textual metadiscourse in the academic book reviews from the fields of humanities (linguistics and literature) and social sciences (sociology, history, and ethnography) in both Serbian and English languages. The principal aim of our research was to attempt to establish a potential variation in the use of these markers with regard to the parameters of the type of markers, discipline, and language in which the reviews were written. The qualitative-quantitative analysis was carried out according to the model provided by Blagojević (2008). As for the first parameter, the comparison showed the predominance of logical textual connectives in comparison to both other textual connectives and markers of discourse actions/references to discourse across disciplines and languages. When it comes to the parameter of discipline, linguistics, literature and sociology reviews contained the greatest number of markers. Regarding the language criterion, cumulatively speaking, more markers were observed in the reviews in Serbian than in the reviews in English. However, the difference was rather subtle and it pointed to similarities rather than disparities in the use of these markers.